Alright, a quick summary of where things are. I finished Bulletstorm and was disappointed the game didn’t do so well. The language is bad, but the gameplay was actually very fun. Unrelated to gaming is I need to make some changes to the blog so the older posts can be accessible. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to make that change, but it’s on my list.

This week, I sampled Voxatron, a voxel-based game. I only played for about an hour (shows how busy I am lately), so my thoughts on it are flavored with very little game time.

There’s been a growing interest in voxel-based (3D pixels) games lately. This was the first game that was brought to my attention. It’s action-based tending towards a shooter. Since it’s only in alpha, I know the lack of instructions in the very beginning (like, V is the fire button – this would have been helpful to know first thing) is due to that, but it’s still a little sloppy.

The directional keys are also a bit of a hassle and require some getting used to. I’m used to a certain configuration with shooters/shmups where I don’t have to face the direction that I’m firing but use the mouse to indicate which direction I should fire in or I’m moving in one direction and begin shooting and can move around to control where I want to aim while remaining mobile. These controls are a little wonky. I have to hold the fire key down first in the direction I want to fire, then move around to keep firing in one direction. Essentially, it turns into a Space Invaders game but in 3D isometric space. It’s really strange and kind of frustrating.

The graphics are cute, quaint. It’s sort of reminiscent of the old 8-bit, 16-bit games, but in 3D. Simple blocky graphics. It’s actually nicer than Minecraft since it doesn’t have textures on each block, making them look much cleaner and smoother. Probably a personal opinion, but I was never a big fan of Minecraft to begin with.

Overall, with my very little experience in the game, it is difficult. Part of it is acquainting myself with the controls (I keep dying). Another part of it is I think there is an inherent difficulty or challenge provided by the game. Also, the environment is destroyable, possibly hinting at what larger, real-world 3D games might be capable of further down the future (Assassin’s Creed hints at the way characters can interact with the environment and other games have destroyable buildings already). That’s all I can think of for this game.